Fathers Day

My children love me. My son got me a Star Wars game, my daughter a cuddly toy which she states is experiencing hair loss like me, and one I can let Leia, our Cockapoo, savage.  I got taken to the Mistley Thorn where I got to drink as have great food. 

Later in the day, it was time for the pub quiz. The questions were much harder than normal and we almost came second, a tie breaker putting us into third place. 

Nadine Dorries and the by-election

It has been an even more interesting few days in politics.  Nadine Dorries, has mentioned before, has resigned as an MP, after saying that she did not want to cause a by-election earlier that day. Now allegations are flying about the events leading up to this.  Ultimately, it comes down to if we should trust Rishi Sunak, or trust Boris Johnson, a man who lied about parties to Parliament, lied about his affairs and lied about so many other issues that the list is too long to post here.  

The UK Covid-19 Inquiry

This week, an inquiry into COVID is about to start.  I think that it is fair to remind people that despite the warnings of Exercise Alice and Exercise Cygnus, the nation was not prepared.  As noted on the video above, we did not have enough PPE and contracts were handed out to people who on too many occasions, did not deliver.  Thanks to cuts before the pandemic, our ability to test for COVID was insufficient. 

People still compare COVID to influenza.  Influenza does put the NHS under considerable strain, but not like COVID did in the pandemic.  People forget what happened in Italy and too many people are not aware that our funeral homes were overrun with corpses, this despite the extra capacity that they built for the pandemic.

Hopefully, the government will not be able to hide evidence from the inquiry and this will provide many with the answers that we can learn from so this does not happen again.

NHS staffing (again)

This week, two stories were in the headlines. One is about the UK taking too many healthcare staff from developing nations. The other later in the week was about how the NHS does not have enough staff itself to provide our nation with the level of healthcare people expect. 

Due to working conditions and pay, other developed nations are taking staff from the NHS. Staff have been voting with their feet and have opted for better pay and working conditions abroad. We need to change that. 

Boris Johnson again

First of all, there is the matter of the resignation honours of Boris Johnson from his time as PM. Labour said the list amounted to “rewards for those who tried to cover up rule-breaking”, while the Lib Dems said it was “gongs for Johnson’s Partygate pals” and described it as “corruption pure and simple”.  Listening to BBC Any Questions, the issue of Tony Blair came up.  While there is no doubt that Blair misled Parliament with his dodgy dossier, this was an exaggeration, not an outright lie.  Boris will continue to argue that events which required suitcases of wine to be brought into Downing Street were work related. I am not sure that many others either isolating, or like me working on the front line (though in my case, it was in the trenches just behind the front ones) will agree.

What is also interesting is how Nadine Dorries has quit as an MP, forcing a by-election which will cause harm to Rishi Sunak. Boris Johnson has since done the same after being given the Partygate report, but he claims to have been forced out.  It is a shame that this has happened as a return of Boris Johnson to power would herald even greater support for Labour in the next General Election. 

In summary, Boris Johnson who has finally resigned over PartyGate, has rewarded lots of people for helping him while he decided to mislead Parliament. 

Destruction of the Kakhovka Dam

On the 6th of June, the Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine was destroyed.  Both Russia and Ukraine blamed the other side. For Russia, this would cause issues with the water supply to Crimea and also risk safety at Europe's largest nuclear plant. For Ukraine, this means that not only are the areas that they recaptured to be flooded, but also this is going to be harder to cross the Dnipro River. When I say cross, Ukrainian forces already did this in April and it may be that the flooding may affect those who are on the south bank.  

Such an action will make it harder for Ukraine to retake Crimea, but I suspect that was going to be a hard ask anyway. 

  

Love Island day 3 2023

 Sad though it is, my wife, daughter and I are watching Love Island. My daughter realised earlier today that it had started and so we watched the first episode, bits of the second and we are watching the latest episode right now. My wife has the view that the one I think is the prettiest is a mutated dwarf, but she tends not to like women I find attractive.

Our son is the sanest out of us all as he refuses to watch it.